Discontinued McDonald's Items

We're glad classics like the Big Mac, french fries and McFlurries are still on the menu, but other items haven't lasted as long. Uncover our favorite seven discontinued McDonald's items.

Image Credit: Getty Images / Justin Sullivan

Hulaburger

Ray Kroc, who helped build McDonald's into a fast food empire, invented the hulaburger in 1963 to offer a meatless burger alternative for Roman Catholics abstaining from eating meat on Fridays during Lent. Inside the hulaburger, a slice of pineapple replaced the meat. Tested alongside the Filet-O-Fish sandwich, the hulaburger was short-lived while the latter item was permanently added to the menu.

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Salad Shakers

McDonald's introduced the smartly designed Salad Shakers on their spring menu in the year 2000. These salads were packed in tall plastic cups with domed lids, and fixing up a salad was as easy as adding the dressing, covering with the lid and shaking for an evenly coated, mess-free meal.

McPizza

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, McDonald's treaded into the pizza market by adding family-sized and personal-sized pizzas on the menu and expensive pizza ovens in facilities at over 500 locations. However, pizzas were discontinued at most restaurants by 2000 due to the concern that the longer cooking time would harm the chain's reputation for fast service.

The Cheddar Melt, which is composed of a quarter pound beef patty topped with grilled onions and cheddar cheese and bedded between two light rye buns, has intermittently come and gone on the menu, making appearances in 1988, the 1990s and 2004.

Mickey D

McDonald's largest burger on the menu, the Mickey D, was only available in the year 1993, and it launched in January and was discontinued in the fall. The hefty burger weighed more than 1.6 times the weight of either the Quarter Pounder or Big Mac. Within the crusty roll of each Mickey D was a one-third pound beef patty, Cheddar cheese, diced tomatoes, red onions and spicy sauce.

Image Credit: AP / Amy Sancetta

Arch Deluxe

In 1996, McDonald's tried marketing a sophisticated hamburger called the Arch Deluxe with an expensive $100 million advertising campaign. This burger was made "for grown-up tastes" and was composed of a quarter-pound beef patty, leaf lettuce, tomato, red onion, cheese, optional peppered bacon and a honey mustard-type sauce inside a potato roll and was available for only a year.

Image Credit: Getty Images

McDLT

From 1984 to 1991, McDonald's developed an innovative hot and cold packaging for the McDLT, which stands for McDonald's Lettuce and Tomato. The two-sided container kept hot and cold ingredients separate. Customers assembled the half with the meat and bottom bun together with the half containing lettuce, tomato, American cheese, pickles sauce and the top bun to enjoy their freshly prepared, non-soggy burger.

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McDonald's has built a vast fast food empire on classics like the Big Mac, french fries and McFlurries, but not every item on the menu has lasted as long.

Do you remember the short-lived Arch Deluxe marketed for "grown up tastes" or the innovative hot and cold packaging of the McDLT?